Adele
Schneidereit was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a toddler
after her family noticed that she was having difficulty
crawling. From that moment on, people began telling her she
couldn’t do things. And Schneidereit learned to disregard
these misguided attempts to protect her from herself,
attending high school and college, obtaining a driver’s
license, marrying and starting a family and co-founding the
Inspire the World Foundation—an organization dedicated to
finding a cure for cerebral palsy. As part of her
awareness-raising campaign Schneidereit recently began a
project that once again shatters the boundaries that other
people establish on her behalf.
“The
idea was born in February,” she said. “I think I had always
just waited for somebody to find a cure for cerebral palsy. I
was told that there were charities out there that cared about
cerebral palsy and I had my family and that was that. Then,
one morning I woke up and said ‘I’m going to learn to fly and
I’m going to fly around the world. And I’m going to make a
video about it.’ So I drafted a letter of my plan and sent it
to my financial planner and he thought I was crazy.”
Accusations
of insanity notwithstanding, Schneidereit hired an independent
film production company in San
Luis Obispo—Aspect
Studios—to help her make her film. Within less than a
month she was taking flying lessons through a
San
Luis Obispo
flight school called Pigs Can Fly. Schneidereit began strong,
with an estimated three lessons a week (which eventually
decreased to two) but discovered that, like with everything
else in life, she would have to progress at her own pace and
overcome prejudice and physical obstacles that other would-be
pilots would never face. Learning to fly is a dangerous
endeavor for anybody, but with a weaker left arm (like most
people with cerebral palsy, Schneidereit is affected in the
left hemisphere of her body), Schneidereit decided to hire a
personal trainer to build the necessary strength to control
the plane’s yoke. For the first couple of lessons, she had to
climb into the plane through the passenger side, eventually
learning to climb into the pilot’s side through some
experimentation.
More
terrifying than actually controlling an air-born vessel was
finding a neurologist willing to support her application for
her pilot’s license.
“They’re
going to make me fly better than the average person to let me
get my FAA license,” Schneidereit acknowledges with both
resignation and determination. “And then there was the FAA
experience, with flight surgeon Dr. Abernathy. The medical
tests the FAA is requiring me to do, I can’t imagine anyone
else having to do.” In order to convince the neurologist that
she is physically capable of flying, Schneidereit showed him a
video filmed during one of her training sessions. After
watching the video and conducting an extensive physical
examination, the doctor agreed that she was physically capable
of piloting a plane.
For
the most part, Schneidereit handles these increased demands
and doubts like an old pro, but at times her frustration seeps
into the pilot’s log blog that she keeps on her Inspire the
World Foundation website. The blog traces Schneidereit’s
trials and successes along the path to obtaining her pilot’s
license, but her film, Hemispheres, will
address the broader, global implications of cerebral palsy.
Citing Inconvenient
Truth as the type of film with the degree of impact she
would like Hemispheres to make, Schneidereit has
been interviewing people whose lives have been affected by
cerebral palsy. Her film crew attended the 2007 United
Cerebral Palsy Annual Conference where they met, and
interviewed Emily Dolenz, United Cerebral Palsy’s Development and
Marketing Coordinator and daughter of Micky Dolenz of The
Monkees.
“The
longer I do this the more people come up to me and say ‘my
nephew has cerebral palsy’ or ‘my sister has cerebral palsy,’”
said Schneidereit. “That’s how I found Chris
Cooper and Marianne Leone. Their son died of cerebral
palsy complications in 2005.” On May 31 Schneidereit flew to
Kingston,
Massachusetts
to interview the talented couple. (Cooper has been in American Beauty, The Bourne
Identity, Capote,
and Syriana
among other films and Leone is both a writer and actress)
Another big name interview that Schneidereit hopes to include
in the film’s trailer, which will be released on the film’s
website any day, is comedian Josh Blue from The Last Comic
Standing. These interviews will be supplemented by
not-yet-scheduled interviews that Schneidereit conducts during
her flight around the world.
Schneidereit
originally considered beginning her world-spanning journey in
the spring of 2009, but recently decided that June of 2008
might be a better departure date. With just a year to finalize
the details of her trip, she has a lot to think about. As of
yet, she hasn’t chartered her course, though her flight
instructor, Howard Morse, has offered her advice. While making
these plans, she will have to take into account the fact that
airplane fuel is not available everywhere in the world. Then
there’s the question of whether her husband can accompany her
during the flight. While she would like the companionship, he
is concerned that people will believe that he flew the plane
if he decides to go with her. Schneidereit will have to fly
well over 20,000 miles, but is reluctant to estimate a time
frame for her journey.
“I
would like to interview interesting people with cerebral palsy
along the way,” she said. “The point is not to go as fast as
possible.”
Financing
the entire project—filming, flight school, circumnavigating
the earth—is definitely a challenge. Schneidereit estimates
that fuel alone will cost $21,000—if prices don’t escalate
over the course of the next year. She is accepting donations
through her web site, www.inspiretheworldfoundation.org and
has pledged that any funding that exceeds the cost of
producing Hemispheres will be spent researching
for a cure.
Many
claim that there is no potential cure for the birth defect
that afflicts between 5,0000 and 10,000 infants born in the
United
States
each year. But for Schneidereit hearing that there is no cure
is like hearing someone tell her that she can’t drive or
attend a normal public school.
“I
have no idea why they’re saying there is no cure,” she said.
“There is a cure. We just haven’t found it yet. It takes
effort to find a cure and maybe they just don’t want to admit
they haven’t given enough of an effort.”
Schneidereit
understands the significance of timing, and she’s hoping that
the timing of her effort will help her gain support. She
believes that because the symptoms of cerebral palsy are
identical to the symptoms of a stroke, once scientists
identify a cure for cerebral palsy, they will also have a cure
for strokes. With a large generation of baby boomers poised to
enter that particular phase of medical concerns, a lot of
people could benefit from Schneidereit’s
efforts.
Through
Hemispheres,
Schneidereit hopes to alert the world to an issue and a
segment of the population that has been deliberately shut away
from public view until recently. She plans to promote the film
to internationally acclaimed festivals like
Cannes and Sundance. But, until then, she’s just
another person fulfilling a personal dream, trespassing where
never lark or even eagle flew. ∆
